‘It is heart-breaking to see 3.2. million people severely food insecure,’ says UN food chief

A woman in the region of Kasai, Congo, carries a sack of food at a distribution centre. Conflict in the Kasai provinces has displaced 1.5 million people. As three crop cycles have been missed and displacement continues, severe malnutrition is becoming a pressing issue. (John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images)

The head of the UN’s World Food Program is making an urgent appeal for aid to stave off a humanitarian crisis in Congo, formerly known as Zaire, where millions are struggling with food shortages brought on by conflict.

David Beasley began a four-day mission to the country on Friday and said more than three million people face severe hunger in the south-central Greater Kasai region.

He said several hundred thousand children could die within the next few months.

“It is heartbreaking to see 3.2. million people severely food insecure, who don’t know where they will get their next meal,” Beasley told CBC News.

“And we’re talking about several hundred thousand children there that will die in the next few months if we don’t get: first funds, and then second food, and then third, access in the right locations.”

On Saturday, Beasley met with conflict-displaced families in the region, where violence erupted in August 2016 after clashes between security forces and the Kamwina Nsapu armed group.

Beasley said the violence is “something like you’d see in a horror movie.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this. We literally have 12-year-olds and 10-year-olds killing others and chopping their heads off,” he said.

“We’re asking for the government and all parties involved to bring peace so that we can save innocent children and try to bring some stability to the region.”

A regional tribal leader who had defied the government of President Joseph Kabila died during the clashes.

Officials say the number of people displaced by conflict has nearly doubled in the past six months to 1.5 million.

The Case for Colonialism, published in Third World Quarterly by Bruce Gilley, argues Western colonialism was both “objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate” in most places where it existed.

Gilley, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, claims the solution to poverty and economic underdevelopment in parts of the Global South is to reclaim “colonial modes of governance; by recolonizing some areas; and by creating new Western colonies from scratch.”

India is often cited as a colonial success story, partly because of its train system: the trains transported colonial troops to quell inland revolts.(Shutterstock)

Whether the article is ultimately retracted or not, its wide circulation necessitates that its claims be held up to careful historical scrutiny. As well, in light of current public debates on censorship and free speech versus hate speech, this is a discussion well worth having. Although this debate may seem as though it is merely academic, nothing could be further from the truth.

Although it may seem colonialist views are far behind us, a 2014 YouGov poll revealed 59 per cent of British people view the British Empire as “something to be proud of.” Those proud of their colonial history outnumber critics of the Empire three to one. Similarly, 49 per cent believe the Empire benefited its former colonies.

Such views, often tied to nostalgia for old imperial glory, can help shape the foreign and domestic policies of Western countries.

Gilley has helped to justify these views by getting his opinions published in a peer review journal. In his article, Gilley attempts to provide evidence which proves colonialism was objectively beneficial to the colonized. He says historians are simply too politically correct to admit colonialism’s benefits.

In fact, the opposite is true. In the overwhelming majority of cases, empirical research clearly provides the facts to prove colonialism inflicted grave political, psychological and economic harms on the colonized.

It takes a highly selective misreading of the evidence to claim that colonialism was anything other than a humanitarian disaster for most of the colonized. The publication of Gilley’s article — despite the evidence of facts — calls into question the peer review process and academic standards of The Third World Quarterly.

Colonialism in India

As the largest colony of the world’s largest imperial power, India is often cited by apologists for the British Empire as an example of “successful” colonialism. Actually, India provides a much more convincing case study for rebutting Gilley’s argument.

With a population of over 1.3 billion and an economy predicted to become the world’s third-largest by 2030, India is a modern day powerhouse. While many attribute this to British colonial rule, a look at the facts says otherwise.

As proven by the macroeconomic studies of experts such as K.N. Chaudhuri, India and China were central to an expansive world economy long before the first European traders managed to circumnavigate the African cape.

During the heyday of British rule, or the British Raj, from 1872 to 1921, Indian life expectancy dropped by a stunning 20 per cent. By contrast, during the 70 years since independence, Indian life expectancy has increased by approximately 66 per cent, or 27 years. A comparable increase of 65 per cent can also be observed in Pakistan, which was once part of British India.

Although many cite India’s extensive rail network as a positive legacy of British colonialism, it is important to note the railroad was built with the express purpose of transporting colonial troops inland to quell revolt. And to transport food out of productive regions for export, even in times of famine.

The Bengal famine of 1943 was the final British-administered famine in India and claimed around three million lives. When Winston Churchill was asked to stop shipping desperately needed foodstuffs out of Bengal, he said Indians were to blame for their own deaths for ‘breeding like rabbits.’(Shutterstock), CC BY

Colonialism did not benefit the colonized

India’s experience is highly relevant for assessing the impact of colonialism, but it does not stand alone as the only example to refute Gilley’s assertions. Gilley argues current poverty and instability within the Democratic Republic of the Congo proves the Congolese were better off under Belgian rule. The evidence says otherwise.

Since independence in 1960, life expectancy in the Congo has climbed steadily, from around 41 years on the eve of independence to 59 in 2015. This figure remains low compared to most other countries in the world. Nonetheless, it is high compared to what it was under Belgian rule.

Under colonial rule, the Congolese population declined by estimates ranging from three million to 13 million between 1885 and 1908 due to widespread disease, a coercive labour regime and endemic brutality.

Gilley argues the benefits of colonialism can be observed by comparing former colonies to countries with no significant colonial history. Yet his examples of the latter erroneously include Haiti (a French colony from 1697 to 1804), Libya (a direct colony of the Ottoman Empire from 1835 and of Italy from 1911), and Guatemala (occupied by Spain from 1524 to 1821).

These counter-examples disprove Gilley’s central thesis that non-Western countries are by definition incapable of reaching modernity without Western “guidance.”

In short, the facts are in, but they do not paint the picture that Gilley and other imperial apologists would like to claim. Colonialism left deep scars on the Global South and for those genuinely interested in the welfare of non-Western countries, the first step is acknowledging this.

The Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa is one of the world’s most resource-rich countries. A wide range of rare minerals can be found here in abundance, all commanding high prices in world commodity markets. Diamonds for jewellery, tantalum, tungsten and gold for electronics; uranium used in power generation and weaponry and many others. Congo has copious deposits of raw materials that are in high demand internationally but remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

From colonisation, with the horrors of slavery and other atrocities, to a turbulent and equally brutal present in which militant groups control the mines, Congo’s richness in natural resources has brought nothing but misery. Referred to as “conflict minerals”, these riches leave only a trail of death, destruction and poverty.

Under Belgian rule, Congolese labourers were often required to meet quotas when mining different minerals. Failure could mean punishment by having a hand cut off with a machete. The country gained independence in 1960, but that didn’t put a stop to slave and child labour or to crimes being committed to extract and exploit the minerals. Warring militant fractions from inside the country and beyond seized control of mines for their own benefit while terrorising local populations.

For our translator, Bernard Kalume Buleri, his country’s history of turmoil is very personal; like most Congolese people, he and his family fell victim to the unending mineral based power struggle. Born in the year of his country’s independence, he has lived through war and seen his homeland torn apart by violent looting and greed. His story is a damning testament, illustrating how nature’s bounty, instead of being a blessing, becomes a deadly curse.

When kids are accused of witchcraft in Africa’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, they’re thrown out of their homes to beg and steal in the streets, where might is right. The aim of the country’s first center for homeless children is to bring them back to their families, but superstition in Congolese society is hard to combat.

Most of those who are amused with their iPhones, and other consumer electronics, are not aware of what made these gadgets possible.

Even those space explorations and scientific advancements would not have been possible without the mineral resources supplied by a country which, in spite of all these critical contributions, still mired in poverty, hunger and conflict.

Congo is the extreme illustration of wanton exploitation in a scale that is so massive and absolute, such that those who perpetrated it may have forgotten what it is to be human.

For more than a century, Congo’s vast mineral deposits have been the magnet for Western military intervention by proxies in the region.

Millions of Congolese have lost their lives in a conflict that the United Nations describes as the deadliest in the world since World War Two. United States allies, Rwanda and Uganda, invaded in 1996 the Congo (then Zaire) and again in 1998, which triggered the enormous loss of lives, systemic sexual violence and rape, and widespread looting of Congo’s spectacular natural wealth.

The ongoing conflict, instability, weak institutions, dependency and impoverishment in the Congo are a product of a 125 year tragic experience of enslavement, forced labor, colonial rule, assassinations, dictatorship, wars, external intervention and corrupt rule.

Analysts in the film examine whether U.S. corporate and government policies that support strongmen and prioritize profit over the people have contributed to and exacerbated the tragic instability in the heart of Africa.

Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering The Truth explores the role that the United States and its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, have played in triggering the greatest humanitarian crisis at the dawn of the 21st century. The film is a short version of a feature length production to be released in the near future. It locates the Congo crisis in a historical, social and political context. It unveils analysis and prescriptions by leading experts, practitioners, activists and intellectuals that are not normally available to the general public. The film is a call to conscience and action.

A recent estimate of $24 trillion worth of cobalt, copper, coltan, and diamond are still sitting beneath its lands that for decades were littered with 6 million dead from hunger and endless wars with neighboring Rwanda and Uganda under the dictate of Western corporations.

Since 2007, China intervened with “resources for infrastructures” to help the Congolese take it to the next level, instead of the previous “divide and conquer” strategy that the West employed throughout Africa.

Twenty-four trillion dollars. It is a number that beggars the imagination, almost 40 percent of the global economy, and according to a recent UNEP report it is buried in one of the world’s poorest and most violent countries: The Democratic Republic of Congo. Failed state, rape capital of the world, humanitarian catastrophe…

Congo personifies all these but beneath the surface its dark earth holds $24 trillion of copper, cobalt, coltan, the bones and blood of information age manufacturing. For this reason, if for no other, the world cannot ignore Congo. It can’t afford to.

Called Congo’s “deal of the century”, in 2007 China recognized the beleaguered nation’s importance to the global economy with an unprecedented $9 billion resources-for-infrastructure agreement which holds the potential to unlock Congo’s vast mineral wealth and improve the material lives of its seventy-one million people with new roads, rails, hospitals, and universities.

Now, five years later, Congo’s eastern frontier remains a lawless battleground with conflict minerals undermining regional stability and the $9 billion question remains: Will Chinese investment be the cornerstone for Congo’s development or a grave marker for dead dreams in the green hills of Africa?

With incredible resource wealth and the land mass of Western Europe, Congo is a country whose staggering economic potential is matched only by its poverty and corrupt mismanagement.

Congo ranks last on the UN’s human development index and Transparency International’s 2011 corruption perception index ranks Congo at 168, tied with Libya which was at the time engulfed by civil war. In human terms the development reports shuffled around New York and Geneva read like damning tarot cards to the Congolese people.

Life expectancy is less than 48 years. One of five children will die before age five. Sixty percent of the country’s 71 million people live on less than $1.25 per day. More than 400,000 women a year are victims of sexual violence, a fact prompting UN special Representative Margot Wallstrom to call Congo “the rape capital of the world”.

On the grounds of these statistics it is difficult to see why China would invest $9 billion in this country-cum-humanitarian crisis, but looking beneath the surface China’s interests immediately become clear: immense deposits of copper, cobalt, tin and coltan; the life blood of Chinese manufacturing.

It is a profound irony that Congo, rated by the IMF as the world’s poorest country, is widely regarded as the world’s richest in natural resources with wealth estimated at $24 trillion. Much of this wealth is buried in mineral deposits whose size is a catalog of the hyperbolic: Congo is the 5th leading producer of tungsten and 6th of tin, holds 5% of the world’s copper and 50% of cobalt.

Moreover Congo possesses an estimated 80% of all known coltan which, refined as tantalum, is a vital component of computers, personal electronics, and the world’s 5.6 billion mobile phones. This cached wealth, vital to the world’s present and future economy, is why Congo cannot be overlooked and why China has taken particular notice.

China views Africa as a major commodities source and Congo’s $9 billion “deal of the century” is a natural extension of their ongoing resources-for-infrastructure policy. In 2004 China approved a $2 billion public investment package for Angola and two years later struck a $3 billion deal with Gabon who would receive dams, railroads, and ports in return for Chinese access to iron ore reserves.

This was followed in 2009 with similar deals in Guinea and Zimbabwe amounting to $7 and $8 billion respectively whereby resource wealth would underwrite Chinese infrastructure investments. Under Beijing’s strategy of mutual benefit China stokes its economic fire with African resources while resource-rich but credit-poor countries further develop their economies with Chinese infrastructure projects. With Congo’s vast mineral deposits and critical development needs a Chinese resources-for-infrastructure deal would seem an inevitable and mutually beneficial arrangement.

China’s initial $9 billion investment was later revised under IMF objections to $6 billion with half going to mine development and half to infrastructure projects and represents an investment significant enough to radically transform Congo’s economy. Many aspects of the deal are not public, but according to NGO Global Witness China would be granted 10 million tons of copper and 600,000 tons of cobalt.

In exchange China would build 2,400 miles of roads and 2,000 of rail, 145 health clinics, 32 hospitals, two universities, and two hydroelectric dams. Other infrastructure projects include widespread transportation renovation and an electricity distribution network. The other $3 billion of Chinese investment would go to develop Congo’s copper and cobalt mines which are expected to turn a profit in 2013, repaying Chinese investment in five years.

Despite the high cost China believes their “mutual benefit” investment will prove worthwhile as mines are expected to produce $40 billion to $120 billion in revenues. With significant Chinese investment at steak and profitability on the horizon, Congo’s fragile government hopes their buried wealth will set the groundwork for successful economic development and has begun courting other countries, notably South Korea, for significant investment deals. However, the arc of history has seldom bent in Congo’s favor and unresolved crises of the recent past threaten both China’s ambitions and Congo’s future.

In spite of its own “economic downturn” this year, and sporadic clashes on Congo’s eastern borders, China is still pouring in massive investments into the region.

As low copper prices and disrupted power supplies reduce output and lead to job cuts by companies including Glencore Plc in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese companies are plowing in more investment.

… More investment is expected to follow, according to Serge Bilambo, head of mining and metals at Standard Bank Group in Congo’s copper-producing Katanga region.

Like in many other cases in other parts of the world, the western brand of intervention in Congo has cost the country countless innocent lives, encouraged dictatorships and paid for only with lip service of better interventions.

This is what the self-proclaimed advanced society has done to please themselves, and in so doing even making their erstwhile geopolitical adversary in China to look more benign.

The Congolese know that they are the key to the change they want to achieve. They know that they won’t be allowed to acquire as much knowledge as possible so they could exploit their vast resources for themselves. But they are only asking for one thing…

The situation in Congo will be resolved by the Congolese themselves. But the international community must urgently stop supporting Rwandans, Ugandans and all militias perpetuating this state of war unbearable for them to put the hands on the wealth of a country without being accountable to anyone.

6 million deaths. Half of them young children. The world says? Free? – We – must necessarily confront that his freedom? Let them. Why so much violence and so little noise from the media?

Is it uninteresting for European? Is it not enough sensational, this massacre in the millions of people? Is it too far? Home? They apply again this odious? Nearby Act?? Why no reaction, no impact in the collective imagination, nor indignation, anger or emotion?

Our duty as citizens of the world is to get the message. Let the world know. Before the world moves. There are culprits in Europe as there are in Africa. Silence kills as powerful as the sound of machine guns. Let all the killers face their responsibilities.

Crisis in the Congo is a heart breaking documentary about the invisible US proxy war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For the last 20 years, the US (and Britain) have been arming and training Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebels who are plundering DRC’s rich mineral resources (gold, diamonds, cobalt, coltan, copper and tin) for the benefit of the electronic and aerospace industry.

The US has a long ugly history in the Congo, one of the most mineral-rich countries* in the world. After the CIA assassinated Patrice Lamumba, DRC’s first democratically elected president, the US installed the brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. When the cold war ended, the US abandoned their support for Mobutu and sponsored a joint Rwandan/Kenyan invasion to remove him from power.

DRC’s 20+ year civil war has resulted in the death of over six million civilians, the brutal rape of thousands of women and children and the forced induction of thousand of child solders.

Barf alert: there’s a disgustingly hypocritical speech by Obama starting at 18.00, in which he accuses Africans of “pointing the finger” at other countries and reminds them of their responsibility to enact democratic reforms.

Postscript: In 2012. after this documentary was made, Obama briefly reduced aid to Rwanda (based on evidence they were recruiting child solders) but resumed funding in 2013. As of 2015, Rwanda remained dependent on foreign aid (mainly Britain and the US) for 40% of their national budget.

Despite the presence of UN peacekeeping forces, the civil war continues in the eastern DRC. It continues to be regarded as a failed state

Meanwhile, the US continues to increase military bases and direct troop deployment in Africa and the corporate media largely refuses to report on it.

Hear Edward Herman talk about his recent book “Enduring Lies,” examining the falsehoods circulated by Western governments about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the ongoing use of that event as an excuse for military intervention around the world at Project Censored Radio